Ionia superintendent warns parents about a new law that will keep third-graders with reading issues from advancing to fourth grade

By Mitchell Boatman mboatman@sentinel-standard.com 616-522-6043

Wednesday

Jan 23, 2019 at 6:00 PMJan 23, 2019 at 6:16 PM

IONIA — A state law enacted in October, 2016 is going to start having real consequences for Michigan youngsters who are struggling with their reading skills, beginning in the 2019-2020 school year.

Public Act 306 of 2016 requires all third-grade students to be reading at grade level by the end of the school year, or they could be held back.

Ionia Public Schools Superintendent Ron Wilson wants to make sure parents understand the seriousness of the new law, and how important it is to help youngsters get up to par with the fundamental skill of reading.

"Despite pushing to parents on the new legislation, and the impact it’s going to potentially have on our school, they don't seem to get it," Wilson said. "I'm dumbfounded how many parents aren’t aware or don't understand the legislation."

It's important that parents fully grasp the situation, because a lot of Ionia kids are on track to stumble under the new law.

“It’s a pretty big deal,” Wilson said. “We’ve identified, county wide, only about 50 percent of the kids reading at grade level by third grade. The kids that are currently second-graders right now, at the end of third grade, if they’re not at grade level, they would need to be retained.”

The new law was delayed by a few years to give schools time to come up with a plan, and start focusing on children who were kindergartners in 2016, and will be third-graders in the fall of 2019.

The Ionia school district came up with a plan for helping students, and parents are a big part of it.

“Within the first 30 days of school we administer a test,” Wilson said. “It gives us a pretty good gauge of where the student’s reading level is at.

“From there we meet with parents to develop a plan to try to bring (the student) up to speed. Part of that plan deals with what we’re going to do at the elementary level, when we have (the kids) in school. The other part of it is the parent component.

“It really is imperative that parents get involved and really follow that plan. Read with the kids at home. They can work with the kids at home and reinforce the work that we’re doing here at the school.”

For any parents interested in learning how to help their children read at grade level, Wilson suggests attending a special Ionia Board of Education roundtable meeting at 7 p.m. on Thursday, Jan. 24 to get more information. The meeting will be in the board conference room, adjacent to the central office, at Ionia High School.

There is significant research showing that students who are not reading at grade level by the end of third grade struggle academically as they advance through school.

“Their chances of graduating from high school are cut in half,” Wilson said. “Also, their chances of going to college are almost totally annihilated. Kids that aren’t reading at grade level in the third grade tend to fall farther and farther behind their peers each year.”

While the new law is meant to address a big problem, state lawmakers may have taken the wrong approach, according to Wilson.

“I don’t want to criticize our legislature,” he said. “Their intentions were good. But I’m not sure that this legislation is going to accomplish what they intended it to.

“When you hold a child back, I’m not sure that’s the way to do it. I know that emotionally and socially it stigmatizes kids to hold them back.”

Wilson thinks that providing additional resources to young students, especially those who are at an economic disadvantage, would do more good than retaining students in third grade.

"I think they need to provide more support to early literacy,” he said. . “The reality is, Ionia deals with this because we have so many kids at or near the poverty level. The bigger indicator and component of kids not reading at grade level seems to fall to socio-economic issues.”

The elementary schools in Ionia are progressing in early literacy, Wilson said, but need more help from parents to ensure all youngsters meet the state requirements.

“We’re making great strides,” he said. “We’re doing some things that are pretty innovative, and we're really working hard to move the needle in reading.

“There’s only so much we can do with the resources that we have. That school-parent partnership, if that isn’t met, the chances of this being successful with the majority of our kids is going to be greatly reduced.”

For students who fail to meet standards by the end of third grade, parents will be able to apply for exemptions that would still allow their kids to advance to the fourth grade. Parents will have to request the exemption within 30 days of being notified that their child will be retained.

Final decisions will be made by the superintendent of each school district.

Wilson says that there are many ways to help children gain reading proficiency at home, including reading to the child, echo reading (parent reads a line and the child repeats), discussing the story, and rereading favorite stories, among others.

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